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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Game 32/Dallas: My Take

The road-weary Columbus Blue Jackets hosted the Dallas Stars at Nationwide Arena last night, sticking with the Stars through two periods but running out of gas in the 3rd, falling 2-1.

Rather than cover the game in any depth, there's only one major point to deal with: The officiating crime of the disallowed Derek Dorsett goal. The simple fact of the matter is this: If you have a goal (a puck in the back of the net, with play stopped and everything) nullified on account of a penalty, and the penalty is overturned, then the goal should be allowed. There is no reason why there shouldn't be a goal. I don't care about stupid rules and rationales - the fact that Dorsett's goal was not allowed to stand defies common sense.
Now, let's take it a step further. Had the goal been allowed, then the Blue Jackets would have been tied in the third period. That being the case, Dallas wouldn't have been able to collapse into a blue "Maginot" line defense. Keeping in mind that the Jackets were rapidly losing energy from fatigue (jet lag, combined with all of those crap calls sending them to the bin - with the resulting penalty kills), so it's not a given that the Dorsett goal being allowed would mean that overtime was a given. But you tell me that the Loser Point wouldn't have been a better alternative to the crap we witnessed last night.

On a more personal note, I was a guest of The Cannon's Matt Wagner at last night's game (along with a friend of Matt's). Matt shares a little about our Excellent Adventure in moving from Section 202 to the Miller Lite Power Play Suite in his blog entry. Rumor has it that I made it onto TV, too. Go figure. Suffice to say, I'll echo Matt's comment that $75 for an evening of Suite life is a very reasonable proposition. And thank you to the Blue Jackets for giving me this literal window into a different aspect of the CBJ game-watching experience.